POD2MAN(1) Perl Programmers Reference Guide POD2MAN(1)NAMEpod2man - Convert POD data to formatted *roff input
SYNOPSISpod2man [--section=manext] [--release=version] [--cen
ter=string] [--date=string] [--fixed=font] [--fixed
bold=font] [--fixeditalic=font] [--fixedbolditalic=font]
[--official] [--lax] [--quotes=quotes] [input [output]
...]
pod2man--help
DESCRIPTIONpod2man is a front-end for Pod::Man, using it to generate
*roff input from POD source. The resulting *roff code is
suitable for display on a terminal using nroff(1), nor
mally via man(1), or printing using troff(1).
input is the file to read for POD source (the POD can be
embedded in code). If input isn't given, it defaults to
STDIN. output, if given, is the file to which to write
the formatted output. If output isn't given, the format
ted output is written to STDOUT. Several POD files can be
processed in the same pod2man invocation (saving module
load and compile times) by providing multiple pairs of
input and output files on the command line.
--section, --release, --center, --date, and --official can
be used to set the headers and footers to use; if not
given, Pod::Man will assume various defaults. See below
or the Pod::Man manpage for details.
pod2man assumes that your *roff formatters have a fixed-
width font named CW. If yours is called something else
(like CR), use --fixed to specify it. This generally only
matters for troff output for printing. Similarly, you can
set the fonts used for bold, italic, and bold italic
fixed-width output.
Besides the obvious pod conversions, Pod::Man, and there
fore pod2man also takes care of formatting func(),
func(n), and simple variable references like $foo or @bar
so you don't have to use code escapes for them; complex
expressions like "$fred{'stuff'}" will still need to be
escaped, though. It also translates dashes that aren't
used as hyphens into en dashes, makes long dashes--like
this--into proper em dashes, fixes "paired quotes," and
takes care of several other troff-specific tweaks. See
the Pod::Man manpage for complete information.
OPTIONS-c string, --center=string
Sets the centered page header to string. The default
is "User Contributed Perl Documentation", but also see
--official below.
-d string, --date=string
Set the left-hand footer string to this value. By
default, the modification date of the input file will
be used, or the current date if input comes from
STDIN.
--fixed=font
The fixed-width font to use for vertabim text and
code. Defaults to CW. Some systems may want CR
instead. Only matters for troff(1) output.
--fixedbold=font
Bold version of the fixed-width font. Defaults to CB.
Only matters for troff(1) output.
--fixeditalic=font
Italic version of the fixed-width font (actually,
something of a misnomer, since most fixed-width fonts
only have an oblique version, not an italic version).
Defaults to CI. Only matters for troff(1) output.
--fixedbolditalic=font
Bold italic (probably actually oblique) version of the
fixed-width font. Pod::Man doesn't assume you have
this, and defaults to CB. Some systems (such as
Solaris) have this font available as CX. Only matters
for troff(1) output.
-h, --help
Print out usage information.
-l, --lax
Don't complain when required sections are missing.
Not currently used, as POD checking functionality is
not yet implemented in Pod::Man.
-o, --official
Set the default header to indicate that this page is
part of the standard Perl release, if --center is not
also given.
-q quotes, --quotes=quotes
Sets the quote marks used to surround C<> text to
quotes. If quotes is a single character, it is used
as both the left and right quote; if quotes is two
characters, the first character is used as the left
quote and the second as the right quoted; and if
quotes is four characters, the first two are used as
the left quote and the second two as the right quote.
quotes may also be set to the special value "none", in
which case no quote marks are added around C<> text
(but the font is still changed for troff output).
-r, --release
Set the centered footer. By default, this is the ver
sion of Perl you run pod2man under. Note that some
system an macro sets assume that the centered footer
will be a modification date and will prepend something
like "Last modified: "; if this is the case, you may
want to set --release to the last modified date and
--date to the version number.
-s, --section
Set the section for the ".TH" macro. The standard
section numbering convention is to use 1 for user com
mands, 2 for system calls, 3 for functions, 4 for
devices, 5 for file formats, 6 for games, 7 for mis
cellaneous information, and 8 for administrator com
mands. There is a lot of variation here, however;
some systems (like Solaris) use 4 for file formats, 5
for miscellaneous information, and 7 for devices.
Still others use 1m instead of 8, or some mix of both.
About the only section numbers that are reliably con
sistent are 1, 2, and 3.
By default, section 1 will be used unless the file
ends in .pm in which case section 3 will be selected.
DIAGNOSTICS
If pod2man fails with errors, see the Pod::Man manpage and
the Pod::Parser manpage for information about what those
errors might mean.
EXAMPLESpod2man program > program.1
pod2man SomeModule.pm /usr/perl/man/man3/SomeModule.3
pod2man --section=7 note.pod > note.7
If you would like to print out a lot of man page continu
ously, you probably want to set the C and D registers to
set contiguous page numbering and even/odd paging, at
least on some versions of man(7).
troff -man -rC1 -rD1 perl.1 perldata.1 perlsyn.1 ...
To get index entries on stderr, turn on the F register, as
in:
troff -man -rF1 perl.1
The indexing merely outputs messages via ".tm" for each
major page, section, subsection, item, and any "X<>"
directives. See the Pod::Man manpage for more details.
BUGS
Lots of this documentation is duplicated from the Pod::Man
manpage.
POD checking and the corresponding --lax option don't work
yet.
NOTES
For those not sure of the proper layout of a man page,
here are some notes on writing a proper man page.
The name of the program being documented is conventionally
written in bold (using B<>) wherever it occurs, as are all
program options. Arguments should be written in italics
(I<>). Functions are traditionally written in italics; if
you write a function as function(), Pod::Man will take
care of this for you. Literal code or commands should be
in C<>. References to other man pages should be in the
form "manpage(section)", and Pod::Man will automatically
format those appropriately. As an exception, it's tradi
tional not to use this form when referring to module docu
mentation; use "L<Module::Name>" instead.
References to other programs or functions are normally in
the form of man page references so that cross-referencing
tools can provide the user with links and the like. It's
possible to overdo this, though, so be careful not to
clutter your documentation with too much markup.
The major headers should be set out using a "=head1"
directive, and are historically written in the rather
startling ALL UPPER CASE format, although this is not
mandatory. Minor headers may be included using "=head2",
and are typically in mixed case.
The standard sections of a manual page are:
NAME
Mandatory section; should be a comma-separated list of
programs or functions documented by this podpage, such
as:
foo, bar - programs to do something
Manual page indexers are often extremely picky about
the format of this section, so don't put anything in
it except this line. A single dash, and only a single
dash, should separate the list of programs or func
tions from the description. Functions should not be
qualified with "()" or the like. The description
should ideally fit on a single line, even if a man
program replaces the dash with a few tabs.
SYNOPSIS
A short usage summary for programs and functions.
This section is mandatory for section 3 pages.
DESCRIPTION
Extended description and discussion of the program or
functions, or the body of the documentation for man
pages that document something else. If particularly
long, it's a good idea to break this up into subsec
tions "=head2" directives like:
=head2 Normal Usage
=head2 Advanced Features
=head2 Writing Configuration Files
or whatever is appropriate for your documentation.
OPTIONS
Detailed description of each of the command-line
options taken by the program. This should be separate
from the description for the use of things like
Pod::Usage. This is normally presented as a list,
with each option as a separate "=item". The specific
option string should be enclosed in B<>. Any values
that the option takes should be enclosed in I<>. For
example, the section for the option --section=manext
would be introduced with:
=item B<--section>=I<manext>
Synonymous options (like both the short and long
forms) are separated by a comma and a space on the
same "=item" line, or optionally listed as their own
item with a reference to the canonical name. For
example, since --section can also be written as -s,
the above would be:
=item B<-s> I<manext>, B<--section>=I<manext>
(Writing the short option first is arguably easier to
read, since the long option is long enough to draw the
eye to it anyway and the short option can otherwise
get lost in visual noise.)
RETURN VALUE
What the program or function returns, if successful.
This section can be omitted for programs whose precise
exit codes aren't important, provided they return 0 on
success as is standard. It should always be present
for functions.
ERRORS
Exceptions, error return codes, exit statuses, and
errno settings. Typically used for function documen
tation; program documentation uses DIAGNOSTICS
instead. The general rule of thumb is that errors
printed to STDOUT or STDERR and intended for the end
user are documented in DIAGNOSTICS while errors passed
internal to the calling program and intended for other
programmers are documented in ERRORS. When document
ing a function that sets errno, a full list of the
possible errno values should be given here.
DIAGNOSTICS
All possible messages the program can print out--and
what they mean. You may wish to follow the same docu
mentation style as the Perl documentation; see perl_
diag(1) for more details (and look at the POD source
as well).
If applicable, please include details on what the user
should do to correct the error; documenting an error
as indicating "the input buffer is too small" without
telling the user how to increase the size of the input
buffer (or at least telling them that it isn't possi
ble) aren't very useful.
EXAMPLES
Give some example uses of the program or function.
Don't skimp; users often find this the most useful
part of the documentation. The examples are generally
given as verbatim paragraphs.
Don't just present an example without explaining what
it does. Adding a short paragraph saying what the
example will do can increase the value of the example
immensely.
ENVIRONMENT
Environment variables that the program cares about,
normally presented as a list using "=over", "=item",
and "=back". For example:
=over 6
=item HOME
Used to determine the user's home directory. F<.foorc> in this
directory is read for configuration details, if it exists.
=back
Since environment variables are normally in all upper
case, no additional special formatting is generally
needed; they're glaring enough as it is.
FILES
All files used by the program or function, normally
presented as a list, and what it uses them for. File
names should be enclosed in F<>. It's particularly
important to document files that will be potentially
modified.
CAVEATS
Things to take special care with, sometimes called
WARNINGS.
BUGS
Things that are broken or just don't work quite right.
RESTRICTIONS
Bugs you don't plan to fix. :-)
NOTES
Miscellaneous commentary.
SEE ALSO
Other man pages to check out, like man(1), man(7),
makewhatis(8), or catman(8). Normally a simple list
of man pages separated by commas, or a paragraph giv
ing the name of a reference work. Man page refer
ences, if they use the standard "name(section)" form,
don't have to be enclosed in L<>, but other things in
this section probably should be when appropriate. You
may need to use the "L<...|...>" syntax to keep
pod2man and pod2text from being too verbose; see perl_
pod(1).
If the package has a web site, include a URL here.
AUTHOR
Who wrote it (use AUTHORS for multiple people).
Including your current e-mail address (or some e-mail
address to which bug reports should be sent) so that
users have a way of contacting you is a good idea.
Remember that program documentation tends to roam the
wild for far longer than you expect and pick an e-mail
address that's likely to last if possible.
HISTORY
Programs derived from other sources sometimes have
this, or you might keep a modification log here.
In addition, some systems use CONFORMING TO to note con
formance to relevant standards and MT-LEVEL to note safe
ness for use in threaded programs or signal handlers.
These headings are primarily useful when documenting parts
of a C library. Documentation of object-oriented
libraries or modules may use CONSTRUCTORS and METHODS sec
tions for detailed documentation of the parts of the
library and save the DESCRIPTION section for an overview;
other large modules may use FUNCTIONS for similar reasons.
Some people use OVERVIEW to summarize the description if
it's quite long. Sometimes there's an additional COPY
RIGHT section at the bottom, for licensing terms. AVAIL
ABILITY is sometimes added, giving the canonical download
site for the software or a URL for updates.
Section ordering varies, although NAME should always be
the first section (you'll break some man page systems oth
erwise), and NAME, SYNOPSIS, DESCRIPTION, and OPTIONS gen
erally always occur first and in that order if present.
In general, SEE ALSO, AUTHOR, and similar material should
be left for last. Some systems also move WARNINGS and
NOTES to last. The order given above should be reasonable
for most purposes.
Finally, as a general note, try not to use an excessive
amount of markup. As documented here and in the Pod::Man
manpage, you can safely leave Perl variables, function
names, man page references, and the like unadorned by
markup and the POD translators will figure it out for you.
This makes it much easier to later edit the documentation.
Note that many existing translators (including this one
currently) will do the wrong thing with e-mail addresses
or URLs when wrapped in L<>, so don't do that.
For additional information that may be more accurate for
your specific system, see either man(5) or man(7) depend
ing on your system manual section numbering conventions.
SEE ALSO
Pod::Man, Pod::Parser, man(1), nroff(1), troff(1), man(7)
The man page documenting the an macro set may be man(5)
instead of man(7) on your system.
AUTHOR
Russ Allbery <rra@stanford.edu>, based very heavily on the
original pod2man by Larry Wall and Tom Christiansen.
Large portions of this documentation, particularly the
sections on the anatomy of a proper man page, are taken
from the pod2man documentation by Tom.
2002-06-25 perl v5.6.1 POD2MAN(1)
